Crash: Amazon's S3 utility goes down — There are reports that Amazon's Simple Storage Service - called S3 - suffered a “massive” outage this morning, beginning at about 7:30 am eastern time. At 9:03, an Amazon official posted a note in the service's customer forum, saying, “We can confirm the high error rate you're experiencing.

Can anyone stop this man? — Who is this? — It's Jeff Barr. Amazon's Web Services evangelist hanging out in front of Amazon's headquarters in Seattle, Washington, USA. Here's his blog. — So, why was FastCompany.tv over interviewing him today (my interview will be up on March 3)?

Building the Perfect Laptop — The superslim ThinkPad X300 is Lenovo's bid for leadership in the high-stakes world of laptops — “Phyllis! Get me one of those interoffice mail envelopes!” — It was just after lunchtime on Jan. 15, and Peter Hortensius was storming through the cubicles …

Lenovo X300 vs. Apple MacBook Air... Fight! — As long as Lenovo is drawing a direct comparison between their own X300 and the MacBook Air, we thought we'd go ahead and put them side-by-side for you. So dear reader, how do you define perfection?

BOARD BUCKS YANG — YAHOO! DEAL CONCERN — While Yahoo! chief Jerry Yang desperately seeks an alternative to Microsoft's $44.6 billion hostile takeover, an independent group of Yahoo!'s board members are taking the lead in shaping the company's future. — The informal group is being led by Yahoo! …

4 News Companies Ally to Sell Ads on the Internet — Four large newspaper companies are joining forces to sell advertisements on the Internet, hoping that the combined heft of their Web sites will encourage large advertisers to spend more money. — Each of the four companies …

Wal-Mart Chooses a Hi Def Platform — Back in December I posted a Blog that said “HD or BD - Does Anyone Care.” I only received one response, I was very disappointed. :( But following the news from Best Buy and Netflix, everyone's asking “what about Wal-Mart?” — Ok, so are you ready...Wal-Mart is going Blu.

AT&T Tilt ROM Update Tomorrow — We have it from reliable sources that AT&T will be released a ROM update tomorrow, February 15th. The update isn't going to add any significant new features — unless “working properly” counts as a feature. It's not Windows Mobile 6.1 or a magical driver to speed up the display, either.

Welcome to the All-New Yahoo! Video — Hey Yahoo! Video viewers and creators (and those that do both), — Notice anything different about Yahoo! Video? As you can tell we've really changed things around here. And it's much more than a facelift. It's an all-new site and I'm really excited about it.

On Leaving Yahoo... Leaving Yahoo. — Yes, it's true. I've left Yahoo. — It was somewhat overwhelming sifting through the barrage of reactions over the last 48 hours: “Thanks for all you've done”, “How could you?!”, “Congrats!”, etc. It's fascinating to watch people react.

Google Tests Video Ads on Search Results Pages — Google has always had a love-hate relationship with advertising. Its power and wealth come from the $16 billion a year of advertising that it sells. Yet on its most important pages, the results from its Web search engine …

Toshiba to drop HD DVD, sources say — Company says no decision has been made — The format war has turned into a format death watch. — Toshiba is widely expected to pull the plug on its HD DVD format sometime in the coming weeks, reliable industry sources say, after a rash …

An Outsider's Flawed View Of Silicon Valley — Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman wrote a blog post a couple of days ago comparing Silicon Valley unfavorably to the Seattle tech scene. — I spend a lot of time in both places, and I think some of his observations are correct (people here compete to the death, people there go hiking).